Chess teaching life skills

CHESS
TO TEACH LIFE SKILLS TO
CHILDREN .
CHESSCHESS
CHESS
CHESS
CHESS
CHESS
ARISE TRAINING & RESEARCH CENTER

CHESS
Chess
Helps
Every
Student
Succeed

Purpose
This workshop describes using
chess to address the social
emotional needs of students in
a counseling/mentoring
relationship

This approach has being
implemented in different
public school.

A variety of chess
positions correlated to
social situations will be
presented.

Rationale

Chess is ideal for teaching us that
although we may come from
various backgrounds, socio-
economic statuses and even
languages: our minds can work in
similar ways when trying to reach
a goal.

Students are not necessarily
always ready to talk about their
difficulties, and share feelings.
But, when they are playing chess,
rapport is established in a non-
threatening way.

Once involved in the game, the
pieces become”concrete
manipulative” with which
students can discuss their
problems and find alternatives
and/or solutions.

Life Skills
Trough Chess
Chess pieces
are used as
a metaphor
for life
situations.

Social Skills
• Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional
Intelligence (1995) noted that it is not only
our pure intelligence that helps us to
achieve in today’s society, it is also our
social emotional competence. The following
slides compare some of the skills developed
in chess with some of those cited as key for
effective social competence programs by
the W.T. Grant Consortium.

Emotional Skills
• Managing skills: You need to manage feelings in every
position of the game.
• Controlling impulses: If you do not control your impulses
you might move too fast and may be not see that your
chess position is in danger
• Delaying gratification: Sometimes in a chess position it is
better not to capture a piece and wait for a better
opportunity.
• Identifying & expressing feelings: Playing Chess offers an
opportunity to discuss feelings that arise in different
situations. For example: “I made a mistake…”
• Reducing Stress :To control and reduce stress when you
play is very important in chess and in life.

Behavioral Skills
• Non verbal communication: In Chess, you learn
to see non-verbal clues from your opponents
• Verbal: making requests, respond effectively to criticism,
resisting negative influences, listening to others, helping
others, participating in positive peer groups. When you are
conducting a chess class, you point out mistakes players
make. Sometimes they play 2 against 2 on only one board.
They need to understand, cope and learn negative decisions
and influences from each other.

• Understanding behavioral norms: In Chess you
must always follow basic rules and etiquette rules.
• A positive attitude toward life: In chess you
must try to find the best choice in each position.
Evaluate your position and try to gain insight to
improve it.
• Self- Awareness: developing realistic expectations
about yourself. In Chess, you see that other
players can be better than you and that you can be
better than others.

Using steps for problem solving
• Decision making, controlling impulses,
setting goals, identifying alternatives
and consequences: When you play
chess you have to make decisions and
resolve situations every time you move a
piece. You must control your impulses. You
must set short and long term goals to
achieve a better position and win the game.

How does the model
work?
Rationale

The Chess board represent our lives.
The chess pieces become us. Each piece
may represent the skills we have. The
way we move them will lead us to
success or failure.

The chess discussion produces
meaningful interactions among
students. At the same that language
development is occurring the discussion
linking chess positions with life
situations promoted the development of
social/emotional skills.

Classroom/guidance
presentation
A chess/guidance lesson is
conducted following Mr.
Moreno’s life chess curriculum.
A special social development
objective is linked with a chess
concept.ARISE TRAINING & RESEARCH CENTER

Individual/group counseling
A session starts with a specific
position that reflects a specific
student problem. Other times,
students play and the game is
stopped by the counselor.
Students will gain insight about a
chess position as it relates to
their particular problem.

Chess puzzle activities

Conflict resolution/fight
It’s White’s turn to move. The Black pawns just moved
forward. What would you do?
If the white pawn moves forward,
nobody can stop it. It will be
promoted to a Queen and later the
black King will be checkmated.
But, if white captures black ,
the other black pawn will capture white
and nobody will win. It will be a
draw.
Advice for Life: When somebody challenges you, bothers you
or steps into your space, your first reaction may be to bother or fight
them back. Is it the best decision? It might be best to think before you
move, focus on your goal and move away from trouble.
Fighting does not solve anything, nobody winsARISE TRAINING & RESEARCH CENTER

Dialogue Journals
• Using Journal writing is a great way to interact
with your mentee and develop a personal contact.
• Each mentor should decide the frequency of the
entries in the journal. For some of the students
one’s a week could be enough, other will like to
do more or less entries. For some students I
suggest to use pictures, drawings, word games
along with conventional writing…etc

Peer Mentor/Chess Club
HS ESOL students are selected to be
Peer Mentor Volunteers. They teach
and conduct activities in Elementary
Chess Club.They earn community
services hours required for graduation.
This activity will provide an opportunity
to develop language skills, social and
chess skills.

Students’ Comments
• “I like to play chess because
I have to think and it is not
boring”
• “I learned that you must
think before you move”
• “I want to be successful and
it is fun”
• “This is not just a game, it is
a learning and thinking
game”
• “I like to learn new things”
• “It’s all about making the
right move” ARISE TRAINING & RESEARCH CENTER

Teachers’ Comments
• “In general, they have learned a lot about choices and
consequences. Chess is a complicated game that students
can learn, and when they do, they feel very good about
themselves; students learn to apply choices they learn in
chess to real-life choices they most make.”
Mr. Redding, ESOL teacher, Oak View ES
• “I saw the students grow as they learned more and listened
to them discuss a variety of issues during the sessions.
Sometimes, Mr. Moreno was able to raise issues that I had
concerns about. He related behavior to chess and then
branched out from there. This gave students something
concrete to begin with, and also made the discussion non-
threaten
Mrs. Carlson, ESOL teacher, Blair HS

EVALUATION OF THE
PROGRAM
• Almost all teachers agreed that
through the game of Chess,
students have increased their
social skills.
• Almost all students liked the
program and recommended it.

Chess teaching life skills

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